Why I chose this Jamstack
Thanks for checking this blog out. If you have already looked under the hood, you'd notice that this site is a Jamstack installation. Here, I will discuss why I chose this stack and some of the pros and cons about it.
Jamstack, previously stylized as JAMStack, stands for Javascript, API and Markup (generated by a static site generator) and was first coined by Mathias Biilmann, CEO of Netlify in 2015. In Jamstack websites, the application logic typically resides on the client side (for example embedded e-commerce checkout that interacts with pre-rendered static content), without being tightly coupled to the back end server. They are mostly served with git based CMS or headless CMS. Netlify organizes a conference every year called "Popular Jamstack" that is co-hosted amongst others by Vercel and Cloudflare Pages.
The Jamstack approach to building websites and web applications has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, and for good reason. There are several key advantages to using the Jamstack approach, which makes it one of the best options for building modern web projects.
First, the Jamstack is incredibly fast. Because the Jamstack approach pre-builds all of the static assets for a website or web application, and then serves them directly from a content delivery network (CDN), the website or application loads almost instantly for users. This is in contrast to traditional server-rendered websites and applications, which can be slower because they require the server to dynamically generate the HTML on each request.
Second, the Jamstack is highly scalable. Because the static assets are served directly from a CDN, the website or application can handle a large number of concurrent users without any performance degradation. This is because the CDN can distribute the static assets across multiple servers, which allows it to handle a large amount of traffic without any issues.
Third, the Jamstack is more secure than traditional server-rendered websites and applications. Because the static assets are served directly from a CDN, there is no need for a server that can be attacked by hackers. This means that the website or application is more secure, and there is less risk of sensitive data being compromised.
Fourth, the Jamstack is easier to develop and maintain than traditional server-rendered websites and applications. Because the static assets are pre-built and served directly from a CDN, there is no need for a complex server-side infrastructure. This makes it easier for developers to focus on building the front-end of the website or application, which can be done with a wide range of modern front-end technologies, such as React, Vue.js, and Angular.
If you are still unsure of the white flavour of static site generator I've used, I've chose to setup this site using Jekyll. Initially, I wanted to host it using GitHub Pages but, the free version of GitHub doesn't allow private repositories to host GH pages. That led me to look for alternatives and I came across a service called Netlify.
If I remember correctly, I evaluated Netlify in the past for one of my work's projects but didn't proceed to use it. Now I came back to test it and I loved it. It connects well with the GitHub repo and it can build the code on each commit. Not only Netlify supports https, it has a admin plugin which you can use to add contents from the GUI instead of editing the GitHub repo.
Here are some of the Pros of using this Jamstack to host this site:
- Free to use
- Easy to use and deploy.
- Use the technology you already know
- Quiet a bit of free website templates available for use
- Bit community behind this project.
Here are some of the Cons of using the Jamstack to host this site:
- Netlify free tier offers only limited bandwidth and build minutes
- Hosting a large site will be difficult.
- Custom content takes a lot of effort to setup
In conclusion, the Jamstack approach to building websites and web applications offers several key advantages, including speed, scalability, security, and ease of development and maintenance. These advantages make the Jamstack one of the best approaches for building modern web projects.